Poems

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POEMS

BY

INNES RANDOLPH

Compiled by his Son from the Original Manuscript

BALTIMORE

WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY

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COPYRIGHTED 1898
By HAROLD RANDOLPH

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PREFACE.

As most of the poems contained in this little volume
were written with no thought whatever of publication,
it may not be amiss to offer a few words concerning
their author, and how they came to be written.

Innes Randolph was one of those personalities,
not, perhaps, very often met with, in whom was
combined so many clearly defined and varied tal-
ents as to prevent the complete development of
one. It is, however, not easy to say what his career
might have been had his birth and early training been
differeftt. Born and brought up in Virginia at a time
when the old-fashioned, narrow ideas concerning the
"pursuits proper for a gentleman" held full sway, he
was not permitted to turn his attention to music, paint-
ing, sculpture or literature, in any one of which, with
proper training, he might have accomplished great
things. It is also possible that even these early obsta-
cles might have been overcome had not the Civil War
broken out at the critical moment of his life and
robbed him of four of its best years. After serving in
the Confederate Army throughout the whole of the
great struggle, he found himself at its close, in com-
mon with so many of his brothers of the South, con-
fronted not with questions of artistic or literary
development, but the more immediate problem of

bread and butter. After three or four years spent in
Richmond, Va., years mainly devoted to an uphill fight
to provide for himself and family the ordinary necessi-
ties of life, he determined to remove to Baltimore,,
and there undertake seriously the practice of law, in
which he had graduated before the beginning of hos-
tiUties. With so clear and brilliant a mind as his, and
so unusual a command of language, he must perforce
have made in this an enduring and substantial success,
had his heart been thoroughly in the work; but the
law, like many another calling, is an exacting mis-
tress, and requires from her devotees an unmixed
allegiance. More especially does she frown upon any
dalliance with the arts, and it was simply not in him
to blot out of his life that which so deeply appealed to
him, be the worldly reward what it might. It was
during the early period of his residence in Baltimore
that he found himself most strongly drawn to sculp-
ture, and among the various evidences which remain
to attest his skill in this direction may be mentioned
several life-size busts of prominent men, among them
one of Judge Wm. Pinkney, a marble copy of which
now occupies a niche in the concert hall of the Pea-
body Institute. He also found time to take up the
study of the violoncello, upon which instrument he
finally came to play with considerably more than the
ordinary ability of the amateur. But it was in music,
which was, after all, his ruling passion, that he felt
most keenly the lack of early technical training, so
that no lasting mark remains to tell the world of this

gift. It was, perhaps, not unnatural that, finding him-
self lured hither and thither by such varied attractions,
he should finally have drifted into journalism, for it is
in this field that a wider range of knowledge and ac-
complishments is called into play than in any other.
But the newspapers of today are like huge furnaces in
which men's brains are used as fuel, giving out heat
and light, it is true, while the consumption lasts, but
leaving no enduring memory — merely a pinch of
ashes, which is finally scattered to the winds. During
the many years in which my father was a regular con-
tributor to the various daily and weekly papers of Bal-
timore, his musical and dramatic criticisms, literary
reviews and miscellaneous editorials commanded the
admiration and respect of all readers ; but of them all,
no trace now remains save in the dusty files of "back
numbers."

The poems, of which the larger portion now appear
for the first time in print, belong to no definite period,
but were written at various times throughout his en-
tire life, and are indeed but the irrepressible outpour-
ings of a naturally poetic and artistic nature. Of
those contained in this volume, the ones bearing upon
the war will require a word of explanation in order
that they may be fully understood by the general
reader whose memory does not reach back to that
stormy epoch of fire and sword. "Twilight at Holly-
wood" was written about a year after the war, at the
request of the Women's Confederate Memorial Asso-
ciation, and was read at the service on Decoration Day

at Holl)nvood Cemetery, in Richmond, where many
thousands of the heroes who gave their lives for the
cause that was so dear to them, lie buried. It must
be remembered that the South was then passing
through the scorching ordeal of "reconstruction," and
the spirit that inspired the enthusiasm of 1861 was still
alive, though broken and wasted by defeat, and the
utterances of this poem touched very deeply the senti-
ment of the time — sentiments now almost forgotten —
faded memories without bitterness. But Southern
pride in the undaunted gallantry of the "boys in gray"
will endure forever.

The "Fish Story" was written at about the same
time, and had as its sub-title, "A Parable Without a
Moral." Old Ned typifies the negro in slavery, and
the fish symbolizes liberty. Liberty is secured by the
negro without effort on his part, and they perish to-
gether. The prophetic foreshadowing of the in-
creased mortality among the negroes under their
changed conditions was fully confirmed by subsequent
official statistics.

The lines to "John Marshall" were written immedi-
ately after active hostilities had ceased, and the whole
South was aching under the humiliation of defeat.
The States were occupied by the conquering army,
and divided into military districts. Virginia was Dis-
trict I. At this time the bronze statue of Chief Jus-
tice Marshall was added to and completed the fine
group of Virginia statesmen that surrounds the noble
bronze equestrian statue of Washington in the Capitol
Park at Richmond.

The "Good Old Rebel" was written shortly after-
ward, while reconstruction held sway in the South;
and "Torchwork" is a story of the desolation wrought
by the invading army in the beautiful valley of the
Shenandoah.

It is feared that some of the other poems may also
be in need of a key, or may prove almost too personal
to be comprehensible or interesting to the general
reader; but I can see no way to avoid this without
striking out much that the author's friends would wish
to read.

I think I can hardly bring this little sketch to a more
fitting conclusion than by quoting some lines written
by my father very shortly before his death, after weeks
and months of a painful and distressing illness. His
death occurred in Baltimore on April 28, 1887, in the
fiftieth year of his age :

"Like little children tired of play, who, weary of
their toys, find them out, break them, and fall asleep,
is a man who feels a mortal sickness upon him, and
looks back upon his past life. How empty seem the
toys he has played witih ; how paltry his little victories ;
how puny the things for which he gave his toil, his
blood, his tears; how less still those triumphs over
weaker rivals and the dripping blade that he had borne
so proudly. Yes, Nature breaks these toys for us as
the majesty of death — ^the eternal — ^begins to soothe
our world-worn senses.

"As we stand by the side of one a few hours dead
and note the rapture of repose upon the silent face.

what friend would break that repose and call the
sleeper back from the sublimity of silence to the little
world of passion, of toil, of failure, of grief? Is there
any prize of glory that he would not lose dignity by
rising to clutch? Has love an)rthing to offer worthy
to break his slumbers? Do not power and riches or
sensual joys stand rebuked in the presence of the quiet
disdain of the beautiful dead face?

"Would anyone wake the sleeping child to play
again with the broken toys that he has already found
out and cast aside?

"There is a time to play with toys and to enjoy them.
The earth is full of beauty. The romps of child-
hood, the passions and enthusiasms of youth, are in-
deed beautiful toys ; and yet how soon are they thrown
aside by the busy man, who admires himself as "prac-
tical," because he does so. We are such dullards that
we do not cull the fairest blossoms, or cling to the mer-
riest toys. Too many of mortals banish the blossoms
and hoard the husks of life ; and shabby and poor in-
deed are the broken toys that tumble around the cra-
dles of such — little sordid properties, small vanities,
successes, — one would, in pity, hide such worn and
broken playthings and not belittle with their mockery
the majesty of death. But even where we play with
the noblest toys — ^science, art, ambition, love, — ^they
are only toys at last, and we tired children find them
out before we fall asleep, and when we have cast them
all aside, to lie on our great mother's breast is better

than them all."

Harold Randolph.

INDEX.

TORCHWORK 13

Twilight at Hollywood 24

l/^OHN Marshall 28

The Good Old Rebel 30

A Fish Story 32

A General Invitation 38

This Heart is But a Forcing Pump 39

He Listened While She Played 41

I Seem to Struggle in a Swollen Stream 42

The Tips of the Forest Shimmer 43

Vignettes 44

I Am Not Utterly Alone 48

When We Hear a Plashing Laughter 49

As Sets the Sun upon a Sky of Storm 50

The Back-Log 51

Germs of Genius 55

That Amateur Flute 57

The Shower After the Drought 59

Song Without Words 61

Yet Once Again I Touched Her Hand 63

A Sunset Face, So Wondrous Fair 64

Lines for Music 65

A Fable 66

They Parted in Their Anger {Heine,) 67

Shall I Lament Myself 68

'Tis Here — ^the Little Wooded Knoll 69

Under the Veil of Starless Skies 70

My Tears Lie Deep ; They Do Not Flow 71

The Moon Looks Down {Heine,) 72

Dead Leaves 73

Restless Nights 74

And So I Took the Ringlet Up 76

Torchwork.

I.

A merry rill,
With plashing steps, comes down the hill,

Down the hill,
And, strewn with bubbles, stops to hide

And laugh its fill.
And mirror on its dimpled tide
The grass that overhangs its side;

And laughing still.
Among the rocks, it turns to glide

Down to the mill.

With ceaseless sound
The big mill wheel goes round and round,

Round and round.
Dripping, trickling, oozy-gray

And iron bound.
And running o'er in antic play
In tiny jets and sprouts of spray,
The frolic waters froth all day,

And leap to ground;
Then, foam-embossed, they dash away

With joyous bound.

13

Away it speeds

Among the reeds,
With idle tongue, with prattling tongue.

And whirling leads

The glancing beads

Of foam along.

And runs among
The knotted oak trees, old and stark.
With tangled roots and mossy bark.
Where drooping boughs, with shadows dark

And vines are strung;
Then out, where sunny alders mark

Its course along.

11.

A gray stone mill.
Its walls are piled with rustic skill.

But strong and stable;
And under its projecting eaves
A creeper twines its fresh green leaves

And round the gable.
While o'er its high-peaked roof there waves

A spreading maple.
It nestles in a sheltered cove;
The Massanutten towers above

The storms to dare;
And stretching norward fades away
In lessening peaks of fainter gray

And melts to air.

14

Or, standing in the porch, you look
Adown the windings of the brook

Across the meadow.
And see the "Daughter of the Stars"*
Reflect the bluff, its rocks and scars,
And ripple onward, streaked with bars

Of light and shadow.

III.

Here seemed a calm and happy spot.
Where care and woe could enter not,
Deep hidden in the quiet glen
From all the wrath and strife of men.
The miller well might hold it dear.
For he had lived his lifetime here ;
It was his father's hand that hung
The heavy wheel, with droning tongue.

Beneath the water;
And there his gentle wife had died.
And left him naught to love beside

An only daughter,
Sunny-haired and azure-eyed.
The old man's darling and his pride —

His gentle daughter.

* Shenandoah.

15

IV.

And with a soft and plashing sound,

A drowsy sound,
The old mill wheel goes round and round,

Round and round.
His deep voice drones a monotone

From every beam.
While o'er the pebbles sings the treble

Of the stream;
The rustling maple o'er the gable

Joins with these
In leafy-shaken notes that waken

With the breeze;
And nature's voices all accord.
In song of brook, or pipe of bird.
To sing or whisper one sweet word.

And that is Peace.

The tramp, the tramp of iron hoofs

With mutter hoarse
Comes on with flames of burning roofs

To light its course.
Far in the distance seen at first

The dwellings light,
But, one by one, they nearer burst

Upon the sight,
i6

And all along that valley fair
The homeless shrieking of despair
Comes throbbing upward through the air
Of pitying night.

VI.

They tramp across the rocky hill,
And up the pathway to the mill,
And riding, trooping rank on rank
With jingling spur and sabre clank,
The men that bear that order stem*
Have come to desolate and bum.
O God! may never more return
A lot so hard to bear.

VII.

This is the very glee of war,

A revel of mad delight.
When the smoke of a dwelling streams afar

On the inky sky of night;
When the helpless sons of peace are pale.

And little children feebly wail.
And the women are wild with fright.
When out at the window shrieks the blaze.
And the sparks fly up in the dizzy maze

Of a hideous dance of death.

* Sheridan's order to destroy the mills.
17

When out of the smouldering shingles burst
The tongues of flame, with their cruel thirst,

And fierce and fiery breath,
To lick the roof with ravenous blaze,
Till the glowing rafter reels and sways

O'er the embers underneath;
When down they come with a crash and jar.
And a shower of sparks streams off afar.

To die in the smoky wreath, —
This is the merriest glee of war

And the dizziest dance of death.

VIII.

She stands beside the blaze alone.

Sweet Amy Gray,
Her father bound, and hurried on.

Is borne away.
They heeded not her wailing shriek,
The men were strong, the maid was weak;

They drew her back from him.
And, mounting, rode into the night.
And faded from the lurid light.

And into shadow dim.
She listens, weeping, weeping still.
And as the steps went down the hill.
And fainter grew, and fainter grew

And died away.
She sank upon the midnight dew.

Sweet Amy Gray.
i8

IX.

Where shall little Amy turn,

For all around the dwellings burn?

One only way she hath,
And that is high upon the cliffs
To where an old still-hunter lives;

She oft has trod the path.
But, Amy, there are dangers there —

The yawning precipice.
The moccasin and rattlesnake
Glide oft across the path you take

And near you coil to hiss;
Perchance around you stalks the bear
Or panther, hungry from his lair.

To meet you in his wrath,
And dark and tangled is the brake

And dim and mirk the path.

Spirits of the crag and fell,

Altho' by men unseen,

Haste ye from the ferny dell

And from the dark ravine!

Oh, haste, to help an earthly child,

And guide her footsteps tfiro' the wild.

The way is toilsome, steep and dim;

Bear up each weary, weary limb
With all your elfin art,

19

The maid is fair and pure and meek,
With tears upon her pallid cheek

And sorrow at her heart;
The maid is fair and pure and meek

And innocent of heart.

XL
O spirits, she has lost the way,

She moves toward her death,
She nears the cliff of craggy gray.

So jagged underneath.
Oh, give a gleam of firefly light
To guide her wandering steps aright!

O spirits, must she fall
Upon those bare and jagged rocks.

To beat out her sweet breath —
To clot with red her waving locks '

And still her pulse in death.
To crush her tender limbs and die
In that wild gorge, with no one nigh —
To crush those sweet, sweet limbs and die
Down in the dark, with no one nigh?

XII.
Her form is shrouded by the night.
She stands upon the rocky height,

A span length from her doom;
Nor knows that fathoms down beneath
The jaws of death, with stony teeth.
Are waiting in the gloom.
20

Another step— a cry — ^and then —

The pulses of the air were stirr'd
As tho' the flap of some vast bird

Beat through the hollow glen.

Then all again was silent, save

That echo, shuddering, faintly gave
The death-cry back again.

A horror-stricken echo gave

The death-cry back again.

XIII.

The stars grow dim,
And low along the eastern sky

A streak of day
Awakes the blushing clouds to mark
The outlines of the mountain dark

Against her tender gray.
But wan and pale the colors are.
And through them looks the morning star,

With glimmer slender;
Until the gold and purple glow
And all the heavens overflow

With rosy splendor.

XIV.

The mount — a giant half-awoke —

In vast repose reclines.
Black eye-browed with the jutty rock.

And bearded with his pines,

21

He feels the light upon his crest

And rises from his dreams^
In all his dewy forest dress'd

And decked with all his streams.
And, oh, how lovely is the scene !

The valley, oh, how fair!
Save where dark ruin's step hath been

To leave his footprint there.
And nature's smiling face to mar
With that fell handiwork of war.

XV.

For gaunt and blackened stands the mill,
Its busy wheel forever still,

And mute its tireless song;
The vine and maple, crisp and sere.
Ruin, ruin everywhere

Its splintered walls among.
Too late, too late thou drawest near,
Sweet-featured Peace — no rest is here.
Too late for aught but Pity's tear

To wet the lashes;
For Amy Gray is dead and gone.
Her happy home is cinder-strewn.
And Desolation sits alone

Among the ashes.

22

XVL

Still floweth there
The stream — ^no longer laughing now,

No longer gay;
But o'er the rocks the ripples flow
And sob and weep as down they go

The livelong day.
It singeth low a song of woe,

Till coming where
The fallen wheel, half-burnt, is cast,
And black the ruins stand aghast.
With broken voice it hurries past

In pale despair.
That ever wrath of man should blast

A scene so fair.

23

Twilight at Hollywood.

Today our maidens gathered here to strew

The early flowers upon the soldiers' graves,

In their sweet custom; and at early mom

Hither they came with blossoms, buds and leaves,

And earnest faces fairer than the flowers.

No grave has been forgotten — ^all are dressed.

The simple soldier from the distant State

Is loved and honored, though perchance unknown,

And where he sleeps is beautiful with bloom.

One stayed a little when the rest were gone

Beside a grave. Quite motionless she stood,

Until the paths grew dim, then turned away;

And twilight gathers over Hollywood.

The sun goes down behind a bank of cloud

And dashes all the stormy west with blood.

As dies a hero in a broken cause.

When, pouring out his wasted life, he leaves

The land he loved to darkness and defeat.

Far down below I hear the river rush,

And standing in this city of the dead.

The voice of waters seems a human cry

That rises from the breadth of all the land

Of shivered hearthstones and of broken hearts.

24

The city growing sombre in the dusk

Was lit with splendor forty months agone,

When all our best and bravest gathered there,

A nation's fortress and her capital.

The long streets trembled with the tramp of men

And rang with shouting and with martial strains;

And up the glancing river came the boom

Of mighty guns that held a fleet at bay;

But sorrow came upon her and defeat;

She sank in ashes, and a people's hope

Sank with her, and her glory passed away.

Her arms were overthrown, her flag was torn,

Her children bent their heads beneath the yoke

In bitter silence, and her chosen chief

Was fettered in the fortress by the sea.

O rapid river, with the mighty voice.

Rave through thy hills and wear away the rocks.

Even as a people wears away the heart

In thinking on their glory and their fall.

But, oh, the spirit of the first canipaigns !

Oh, days of life and motion !
From Rio Grande to the Chesapeake
They gathered, sweeping joyous to the fight.
The wild yell rising from the tramping charge
Tore through the ragged rifts of battle smoke
And rose above the thunder of the guns;
And as a great wave on the open sea.
That strikes a blow and leaves a wreck behind,

25

They swept along, a living surge of strength,

With tempest voice and crest of bayonet.

God smiled at first, then turned His face aside.

And hope, that glittered like a sunlit sword,

Was quenched in gloom. And still they smote the foe

That rose, with strength renewed, from each defeat.

Till, broken by their victories, they fell.

For ever thin and thinner grew the ranks.

The weaty march, the hungry bivouac.

The scanty blanket, wet with driving sleet,

The sleepless outpost, listlessness of camp,

The longing for the loved at home — ^all these.

Far more than wasting battle, wasted them.

Until their strength was spent. Now low they lie ;

And never more upon Virg^ia hills

Shall thrill the onset of the Southern lines.

The men who bore the bayonet and the blade

Shall bear them now no more;

But, oh, to think how bright and swift they were.

And now how cold and still !

O rushing river, thou at least art free
And fit to sing a soldier's requiem,
Deep-toned and tremulous — the dirge of men
That once were tameless as thy winter flood.

When once again we stand erect and free.
And we may write a truthful epitaph,
A nation, uttering its grief in stone.
Shall pile aloft a stately monument ;

26

^^H^

Not that their fame has need of sculptured urn,

For they have lived such lives and wrought such deeds

As venal history cannot lie away.

Till then shall scattered roses deck their graves,

And woman's tear shall be the epitaph.

O river, though they moulder in the dust.

Let them not perish from our hearts — ^speak on.

And fill us with thy rushing energy.

That as the gathered freshets of the spring

Burst upward through the shackles of the ice.

So we at last may dash our fetters off.

For until then these men have died in vain.

27

John Marshall.

(Concerning the Raising of the Bronze Statue of Chief Justice Marshall.)

We are glad to see you, John Marshall, my boy,

So fresh from the chisel of Rogers;
Go take your stand on the monument there.

Along with the other old codgers:
With Washington, Jefferson, Henry and such.

Who sinned with a great transgression,
In their old-fashioned notions of freedom and right.

And their hatred of wrong and oppression.
You come rather late to your pedestal, John,

Far sooner you ought to have been here;
For the volume you hold is no longer the law,

And this is no longer Virginia.
The old Marshall-law you expounded of yore

Is now not at all to the purpose,
And the martial law of the new brigadier

Is stronger than habeas corpus.
So keep you the volume shut with care.

For the days of the law are over,
And it needs all your brass to be holding it there

With "Justice" inscribed on the cover.
Could life awaken the limb of bronze

And blaze in the burnished eye,
What would ye do with your movement of life.

Ye men of the days gone by?
28

Would ye chide us or pity us, blush or weep,

Ye men of the days gone by?
Would Jefferson tear up the scroll he holds,

That time has proven a lie?
And Marshall shut the volume of law

And lay it down with a sigh?
Would Mason roll up the Bill of Rights

From a race unworthy to scan it?
And Henry dash down the eloquent sword

And clang it against the granite?
And Washington, seated in massy strength

On the charger that paws the air.
Could he see his sons in their deep disgrace,

Would he ride so proudly there?
He would get him down from his big brass horse,

And cover his face at our shame,
For the land of his birth is how "District One,"

Virginia was once the name!

29

The Good Old Rebel.

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel,

Now that's just what I am;
For this "fair Land of Freedom'^

I do not care a dam.
I'm glad I fit against it —

I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon

For anything I've done.

I hates the Constitution,

This great Republic, too;
I hates the Freedmen's Buro,

In uniforms of blue.
I hates the nasty eagle,

With all his brag and fuss;
The lyin', thievin' Yankees,

I hates 'em wuss and wuss.

I hate the Yankee Nation

And ever)i:hing they do;
I hate the Declaration

Of Independence, too.
I hates the glorious Union,

'Tis dripping with our blood;
I hates the striped banner —

I fit it all I could.

30

I followed old Mars' Robert

For four year, near about,
Got wounded in three places,

And starved at Pint Lookout.
I cotch the roomatism

A-campin' in the snow.
But I killed a chance of Yankees —

I'd like to kill some mo'.

Three hundred thousand Yankees

Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand

Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever

And Southern steel and shot;
I wish it was three millions

Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket

And fight 'em now no more.
But I ain't agoin' to love 'em.

Now that is sartin sure.
And I don't want no pardon

For what I was and am;
I won't be reconstructed.

And I don't care a dam.

31

A Fish Story.

In the Chesapeake and her tribute streams,
Where broadening out to the bay they come,
And the great fresh waters meet the brine,
There swims a fish that is called the drum —
A fish of wonderful beauty and force,
That bites like a steel trap and pulls like a horse.
He is heavy of girth at the dorsal fin.
But tapering downward keen and thin;
Long as a salmon, if not so stout.
And springy and swift as the mountain trout;
For often at night, in a sportive mood.
He comes to the brim of the moonlit flood.
And tosses a glittering curve aloft
Like the silver bow of the god ; then soft
He plashes deliciously back in the spray,
And tremulous circles go spreading away.

Down by the marge of the York's broad stream
An old darkey lived, of the ancient regime.
His laugh was loud, though his lot was low.
He loved his old master and hated his hoe.
Small and meagre was this old Ned,
For many long winters had frosted his head

And bated his force and vigor;
But though his wool all white had become,

32

And his face wrinkled up like a wash-woman's thumb,
And his back was bent, he was thought by some

A remarkably hale old nigger.
But he suffered, he said, with a steady attack
Of "misery in de head and pain in de back,
Till his old master gave him his time to hisself,"
And the toilwom old bondsman was laid on the shelf.
Though all philanthropists clearly can see
The degrading effects of slavery,
I can't help thinking that this old creature
Was a great advance on his African nature.
And straighter of shin and thinner of lip
Than his grandsire that came in the Yankee ship,
Albeit bent with the weary toil
Of sixty years on a "slave-trodden" soil.
Untaught and thriftless and feeble of mind.
His life was gentle, his heart was kind;
He lived in a house, he loved his wife,
He was higher far in his hope and his life.
And a nobler man, with his hoe in his hand,
Than an African prince in his native land.
For perhaps the most odious thing upon earth
Is an African prince in the land of his birth.
With his negative calf and his convex shin.
Triangular teeth and his pungent skin.
So bloated of body, so meagre of limb.
Of passions so fierce and of reason so dim.
So cruel in war, and so torpid in peace.
So strongly addicted to entrails and grease,

33

So partial to eating by morning light

The wife that had shared his repose overnight,

In the blackest of black superstition downtrod.

In his horrible rites to his beastly god,

With their bloody and loathsome and hideous mystery-

But that has nothing to do with the fish-story.

Happy old Edward — ^his labor was done,
With nothing to do but sit in the sun,
And free to follow his darling wish
Of playing his fiddle and catching his fish.
He had earned his playtime with labor long,
And so, like the other Ned of the song,
"He laid down the shovel and the hoe,"
And caught up the fiddle and the bow.

Now I cannot say

That his style of play
Would suit the salofts of the present day.
For the tours de force of the great Paganini
Have never found favor in old Virginny.
He never played a tune that went slow.
For he perfectly scorned an adagio.
But with eyes half-closed, and a time-beating toe.
His elbow squared, and his resinous bow
Not going up high, nor going down low,
But sawing steadily just in the middle.

He played by the rule

Of the strictest school
Of the old-fashioned, plantation, nigger fiddle.

34

And now if that fiddle is heard no more,

Nor the corn-shucking laugh, nor the dance of yore,

When the rhythmical beat

Of hilarious feet
Struck the happy "hoe-down" on the cabin floor;
But deserting those cabins in discontent,
And thinking it free to be indolent.
They leave the fields of the rice and the maize.
And huddle in cities to die of disease;*
If the Christian hymn forgotten should be.
And idols be raised by the great Pedee;
Or if, mislead by villainous men
To enact the mad scenes of Jamaica again,
They fall, as they must, in the deadly assault,
We can only say that it wasn't our fault.
For the South did certainly try her best
To rescue them from the philanthropist
In a strife that shall redden the page of history —
But that has nothing to do with the fish-story.

To return — Old Ned went fishing one day.

And out on the blue.

In his dug-out canoe,
He carried his fiddle along to play.
Long he fished with his nicest art,
There came not a nibble to gladden his heart;

•^ ♦ The official report of General Howard (Chief of the Preedmen's Bureau) shows
that the number of negroes had decreased 1,308,000 since their freedom.

35

So he tied his line to his ankle tight.
To be ready to haul if a fish should bite,
And seized his fiddle. So sweet did he play,
That the waves leaped up in a laugh of spray,
And dimpled and sparkled as if to move
To invisible water-nymphs dancing above,
Reminding one, as he fiddled there.
Of the charming little Venetian air —

"Pescator delF ondor-Fidulin"
But slower and slower he drew the bow,
And soft grew the music, sweet and low;
The lids fell wearily over the eyes.
The bow-arm stopped, and the melodies;
The last strain melted along the deep.
And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep.
Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate.
Caught a passing glance of the tempting bait.
And darted upon it with greedy maw.
And ran the hook in his upper jaw.
One terrible jerk of wrath and dread
From the wounded fish, as away he sped
With a strength by rage made double, —
And into the water went old Ned.
No time for any "last words" to be said.
For the waves settled placidly over his head.

And his last remark was a bubble.

Let us veil the struggle beneath the brine
Of the darting fish and the tangled line.

36

The battle, of course, was a short one, since
Old Ned was not gifted with gills or fins.
And down in the waves was as much out of place
As a mermaid would be in a trotting race;
And motionless soon at the bottom he lay
As mute as the fiddle that floated away.

They were washed ashore by the heaving tide,
And the fishermen found them side by side
In a common death, and together bound
In the line that circled them round and round.

So looped and tangled together
That their fate was involved in a dark mystery
As to which was the catcher and which the catchee;
For the fish was hooked hard and fast by the gill,
And the darkey was lassoed around the heel.

And each had died by the other!
And the fishermen thought it could never be known.

After all their thinking and figuring,
Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone,

Or the fish had gone out a-niggering.

37

A General Invitation.

Come, leave the dusty Longstreet,

Fly to the Fields with me;
Trip o'er the Heth, with flying feet,

And skip along the Lee;
There Ewell find the flowers that be

Along the Stonewdl still.
And pluck the buds of flowering pea

That grow on A. P. Hill
Across the Rhades the Forrest boughs

A gloomy Archwzy form.
Where sadly pipes that Early bird

That never caught the worm!
Come! hasten, for the Bee is gone

And Wheat lies on the plains.
And braid a Garland ere the leaves

Fall in the blasting Rains,

38

This heart is but a forcing pump
That fills its hose — my veins;

It works tonight with jerk and thump
And most unequal strains.

Mechanical adjustments are
The things we call our pains.

Last night I lay upon my bed

With nothing else to do,
And so I listened to its beat

Almost the whole night through.
There seemed a weight upon my breast,

And in my throat a lump;
Some folks would call it sorrow,

But / know it was the pump.

And once it gave an angry thud,

With something like a sigh;
I think a valve got loose and forced

Some water in my eye;
A drop of weak solution.

And so useless any time.
Of per-chloride of sodium

And phosphorates of lime.

39

I think I understand the case

And know what makes it jerk:
It wheezes for another pump

To help it do its work —
That other pump, whose softer beat

Once answered to its own.
But steady! steady! staunch old pump!

We'll thump along alone.

40

He listened while she played,
And watched— with eyes half-closed— the flying touch
Threading among the keys, or holding down
The long deep-thoughted harmonies.
Pale Chopin, with his melancholy eyes.
His heart-sick waiting, and his ghastly mirth.
Touched with eternal beauty, rose and came
And stood — ^a silent presence — ^loving them.
And he — the great tone-poet of the past
Shaped in the solid air — a Samson blind,
Deaf to his own great utterances — stood
Alone — as he had lived — ^wrapped in his cloak.
With shaggy head half-bent upon his breast.
And watched them kindly with his thoughtful eyes.
Because they loved him so.

And she was fair;
Her face was all aglow with noble thoughts
And tremulous with sensibility.
He listened rapt — ^as though her thrilling touch
Played on his heart-strings, giving tone for tone.
They seemed to hear — ^as though the weight of song
Held them together in a strong embrace.
Their beings sang together, like two notes
Struck by a master-hand invisible.
They rose to heights they could not climb alone.
And touched. the threshold of a brighter day.

And then the music ceased; he waked and found
How far they were apart — not even friends;
And on the threshold of the brighter day
He stood and sighed, to see the portal close
And bar him out. And so the golden dawn
Paled into daylight.

I seem to struggle in a swollen stream,
A spring-tide freshet that I cannot stem,
And, as the waters bear me swiftly off,
I see my angel standing on the bank.
White-robed and calm; I sink and rise
And bubble forth a drowning cry to her
To reach a hand to me.

I seem to wade the burning desert sand.
Blind with the glare, and choking with the dust ;
I see my angel standing in the shade
Of stately palm trees, by a little lake
That mirrors back her white-robed purity.
I gasp to her a thirsty, fainting cry;
She does not answer, and the mirage fades
Across the trembling air.

I seem to hold a wild beast by the throat
And wallow with him fighting, life for life;
With claw and fang he tears me and I bleed.
And as my clutch grows weak and weaker still,
I hear my angel singing in the trees.
She walks upon her way and cannot know
The silent battle raging at her side.
Nor how I bleed and die.

42

The tips of the forest shimmer

In the glow of the saddening skies;

They seem like the parting kisses
Of Summer before he flies.

The tear-drops stand on mine eyelids,
Or lie unwept in my heart:

The scene brings back in a vision
The moment that saw us part.

I knew we must part forever,

And saw that thine hours would be brief.
That I was departing Summer,

And thou wert the dying leaf.

43

Vignettes.

Calm-faced marble gods,

Naked, majestic, Greek,
Stand in dim hall of the old French palace.
Mouldering bas-reliefs on antique tombs.
Black basalt mysteries of Egypt,

Darkly staring at the void.
A voice that whispers in a vast hollow basin,
A heart far away listens and grieves,
A wide space bridged by a word

Of burning passion.
Unheard by those that stand near;
Heard only by the gods and one other,
And on and on forever
Across the chasm
Heart speaketh unto heart.

Long lines stretch across the beach
From land-fast anchor

To heaving North Sea fishing boats,
A sky of dusk and amber,

44

Broken with fitful brightness

When the rain-clouds roll away,

A golden rain on the distant sea

And waves of gold rolling upon the sand.

A low, hanging full moon.

Yellow gleams falling on the sombre plain.

Glint of white cottages.

Silvery trunks of birch trees

And tall spires of poplar .

Casting dark shadows along A

The flat French highway.

The portal of a cathedral.

The rain dripping from gargoyle and saint,

A shelter far back in the shadow.

Along the street
A group of roystering sailors sing

In an unknown tongue.
Yellow lamps struggle faintly

Through the fog.
And in the shadow of the holy place — ^worship.

Roaring and singing
Pours the human tide over London bridge;
Dark waters speed silently beneath.
Through the smoke of the city
Rises the cross and the ball —
And solitude and sympathy
In the midst of heartless tumult.

45

The coast of France bathed in sunset;

A vessel that drifts noiselessly;

Old churches and castles on the chalk cliffs

Float slowly by.
Fishermen mend their nets on the beach.

The slow revolution of windmills,
Flat pastures, still sheets of water,
The roar and whine of an express train,
A collision within that strikes fire,
A moan as if of the wounded.

A palace blackened and shattered,
Tall terraces, long forest vistas,
" A mist overlooking all
Where two birds are happy.

An orchestra rising wild, impetuous,
Pleading, passionate.
For lovers Tristram and Isolde
Clasped in a kiss —
Silent —
The violin voices speaking for them
To those who can listen.

A triforium where silent poets sleep.

An organ tremor.
Coming up from the dim basilica.

Upon whose floor
46

Lie the old Templars and Crusaders

Palm to palm.
A place venerable and beautiful;
Saturated with prayer:
Where the soul must utter itself in love.

Two ships tossing on the sea,
Leagues and leagues apart —

Voices that whisper
In the vast sea and billow basin,

And hearts that hear
Even as the reverberating spoken word
Found its way through the dusky air
Of the old French palace,

And reached the heart of the listener.

47

I am not utterly alone,

For sometimes I can trace
Before me on the empty air

The seeming of her face.
The lips that wear the well-known smile,

Sad eyes with tears unwept.
The angel face that bended down

And watched me as I slept.

It lingers still, that angel face.

Upon the formless air;
I see the pity in her eyes

And on her lips a prayer.
It makes my very heart leap up.

As though again I felt
The trembling of the lips that kissed

My forehead as I knelt.

When we hear a plashing laughter

Through the hillside trees, we know,
Though we cannot see the flashing.

There are waters down below.
So there is a kind of laughter,

In a voice one sometimes hears,
That seems through all its merriment.

The sound of hidden tears.

I would wander by the streamlet.

Through the forest and the glade.
And listen to its prattle

In the sunshine and the shade.
For all may hear the laughter.

And some may know the tear,
But there is a deeper music

That I alone can hear.

49

As sets the sun upon a sky of storm,
When all day long the ocean's mighty heart
Has throbbed in tumult in the breath of heaven,
And winds and waves have kissed each other mad,
There comes a calm, and through the sunset glow
The slender glimmer of the virgin star.
Far off beyond the storm, looks sweetly down
And bids the waters throb themselves to sleep.
So man, with woman's breath upon his face,
And all the burning sunset in his blood,
And all the ocean's tempest in his heart.
Is tremulous with strength. But when the storm
Hath spent itself, the gentler, purer love
Comes out above the crimson-tinted clouds.
The woman ceases and the angd dawns.
And bends, with starlight beauty in her face.
To kiss his eyelids into perfect rest.

50

The Back-Log.

It was a rule at Thornton Hall,
Unbroken from colonial days,
That holiday at Christmastide

Was measured by the Christmas blaze.
For till the back-log burned in two.

The darkeys on the place were free
To dance and laugh and eat and drink
And g^ve themselves to jollity.

And mighty were the logs they brought.

Of weight that six stout men might bear,
All gnarled and knotted; slow to bum:
For Christmas comes but once a year.

Old Ned had cut the log that year.

Old Ned, the fiddler, far renowned.
Who played at every country dance

That happened thirty miles around.
He cut the log; for days his face

Showed gleams of merriment and craft;
He often went behind the house
And leaned against the wall and laughed.
And called the other darkeys round

And whispered to them in the ear,
And loud the ringing laughter broke:
For Christmas comes but once a year.

51

At twilight upon Christmas eve

The log was borne on shoulders strong
Of men who marked their cadence steps

With music as they came along;
And Ned, with air of high command,
Came marching at the head of all,
As he had done for "thirty year,"
On Christmas eve at Thornton Hall.
He led the chorus as they marched.
The voices rising loud and clear
From lusty throats and happy hearts:
For Christmas comes but once a year.

Though briskly blazed at Christmas eve

That fire with flames and embers bright.
Until the antique fireplace lit

The paneled walls with ruddy light
Although the spacious chimney roared

Like woodlands in autumnal gales.
And lion andirons of bronze
Were red-hot in their manes and tails.
That back-log, incombustible,

Lay quite unkindled in the rear,
Or only slightly scorched and charred:
For Christmas comes but once a year.

Wide open swung the great hall door
Before the east was gray with dawn,

And sleighs with argosies of girls
Came jingling up across the lawn;

52

Came youths astride of prancing steeds,

Came cousins to the tenth remove,
With cousin greetings by the sweet
Lip services that cousins love.

The silver tankard went around

To every lip with brave good cheer,
According to the ancient rites:

For Christmas comes but once a year.

They feasted high at Thornton Hall,
The Christmas revel lasted long;
They danced the old Virginia reels,
And chanted many a jovial song.
The old folk prosed; the young made love,

They played the romps of olden days.
They told strange tales of ghost and witch.
While sitting round the chimney's blaze.
But though the pile of lightwood knots

Defied the frosty atmosphere.
The back-log still held bravely out:
For Christmas comes but once a year.

And at the quarter, merry rang

The fiddle's scrape, the banjo's twang;

How rhythmic beat the happy feet,
How roUicsome the songs they sang!

53

No work at all for hands to do,

But work abundant for the jaws,
And good things plenty and to spare
Made laughter come in great yaw-haws.
They frolicked early, frolicked late,
And freely flowed the grog, I fear,
According to the settled rule:

For Christmas comes but once a year.

So passed the merry Christmas week.

And New Year's morning came and passed;
The revel ceased, the guests went home;

The back-log burned in two at last.
And then old master sent for Ned,

Still mellow with protracted grog.
And asked him where in satan's name

He picked him out that fireproof log.
And Ned, with all that dignity

That drink confers, contrived to speak.
"I tuk and cut a black-gum log
And soaked it nine days in de creek.
I fears it was a wicked thing,

I'm feared to meet de oberseer;
But den you must remember, sah,
Dat Christmas comes but once a year."

54

Germs of Genius.

My son is a genius. 'Tis easy to see,

By the drawings he makes on his slate

And all the fly-leaves of available books,

That his name in the land will be great.

His beasts have such horn, and his birds have such claw,

Such carnivorous jaw,

So capacious of maw.
Such archings of back, and such ponderous paw.
Such freedom from all anatomical law.
As the eye of a genius alone ever saw.

And Gustave Dore

In his night-marish way
Never pictured such terrible creatures as they;
For ichthyosauri or pliocene snakes
Would look gentle as doves by the drawings he makes.

Now some of the pictures of Rosa Bonheur
Are rather good animal drawings — ^for her;

But she copies Nature's

Mere external features.
And has no conception of these sorts of creatures;
And as for the paintings of Edwin Landseer,
With the endless and wearisome horses and deer.

His feelings I spare;

I forbear

To compare
His pitiful portraits of badger and hare

55

With these masterly sketches, dashed off as they are, —
For no finish of antler or gloss upon hair
Can atone for the loss of their wildness of air,
From his smallest bull-pup with the impudent stare
To his biggest brass lion on Trafalgar Square.
Now here on the page of my latest review.
That I happened to leave but a moment or two,
What is it I find? A man full of dread.

With a circular head
On a triangle body, with legs at the base,

And arms with no joint in

Horizontally pointing
Trifurcated ends out in opposite ways.

Is receiving a blow

From the blade of a foe
That cuts through the skull like a keel through the water;

While a rectangle grin

Shows the grim teeth within,
And the terrible slayer's delight in the slaughter.
The grouping is natural, the drawing correct;
That foreshortened arm has a striking effect;
But the malice and wrath on the face of the victor
Are what give the wonderful charm to the picture.
I will tear out this drawing and fold it away;
He shall have it again on that glorious day
When high on the walls of the Temple of Art

The mighty cartoon is unfurled;
For if he goes on with his pencil in hand
He will make a great mark in the world.

56

That Amateur Flute.

[The company was all seated and the laug^h and jest went round—
lig^ht-hearted revelers unconscious of their doom. The executioner
entered. He bore in his hand a silver flute. A malisiiant smile lisrhted
up his features. ** Ha I ha ! " said he, with fiendish flee, " I will admin-
ister unto them an Adaj^o ; not a man shall escape." Now therefore
this, accompanied with many apologies to the honored shade of Edgar
Allan Poe.]

Hear the fluter with his flute —

Silver flute!
O what a world of wailing is awakened by its toot!
How it demi-semi-quavers

On the maddened air of night!
And defieth all endeavors

To escape the sound or sight
Of the flute, flute, flute.
With its tootle, tootle, toot —
With reiterated tootings of exasperating toots.
The long-protracted tootlings of agonizing toots
Of the flute, flute, flute, flute.
Flute, flute, flute.
And the wheezings and the spittings of its toot.

Should he get that other flute —

Golden flute!
Oh! what a deeper anguish will its presence institoot;
How his eyes to heaven hell raise

As he plays

All his days;
How he'll stop us on our ways

With its praise!

57

And the people, oh! the people,
That don't live up in the steeple,
But inhabit Christian parlors
Where he visiteth and plays
Where he plays, plays, plays
In the cruelest of ways.
And thinks we ought to listen.
And expects us to be mute.
Who would rather have the ear-ache
Than the music of his flute —

Of his flute, flute, flute.

And the tootings of its toot —
Of the toots wherewith he tootleth, its agonizing toots

Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,

Phlute, phlewt, phlewgt.
And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.

58

The Shower After the Drought.

It has come at last. The blessed shower
Comes trickling down on the window pane,

And the yellow leaf and the thirsty flower,

That have watched the sky with a yearning vain.

Now nod and dance 'neath the witching power
Of the joyous drops — of the drops of rain,
The whispering, pattering drops of rain.

Alas! for some it has come too late.

For faded they fell in the parching dearth,

Yet thither the sportive rain drops meet
In their weird, fantastic dance of mirth;

For ever I hear the pattering feet
Of the elfin drops as they dance 'to earth,
On the fallen leaves as they dance to earth.

Across the shade of the forest leaves
The slanting lines come brightly down,

And the giant oak branch waves and heaves,
Tho' ne'er a breath of breeze has blown;

And the gathering drops from the dripping eaves
Fall plashing down on the cool gray stone.
Fall plashing and scattering down on the stone.

59

I cannot tell why thus I sigh.
While joyous Nature laughs again,

As I look aloft at the misty sky,
And sadly follow the drops to the plain;

But with head reclined and half-closed eye,
I list to the sound of the falling rain,
To the delicate feet of the drops of rain.

60

Song Without Words.
I*

I care not for music or song overmuch,

Yet softly I entered to gaze
On the swift moving hand in its delicate touch

And the face that grows bright while she plays.
The music breathes low like a half-uttered sob,

A whisper of deep harmonies^
And the cadence beats out with a passionate throb
As she turns her away from the keys.
With dreamful eyes she turns away.

Lost in a deep reverie;
What does she sec in the far dreamland —
Dare I to think it is me?

Shall I call her back from her far dreamland

With the words I tremble to speak?
Shall I catch and prison her tiny hand

Or touch my lips to her cheek?
What a flush would come on her blue-veined brow.

And her eye flash indignantly.
As I kneel for a pardon, to tell her how
Her beauty bewildered me I
Still in the fairyland wandering on,

Listless she touches the key ;
Touches it silently — day-dreaming Marion !
Can she be dreaming of me?

6i

She has smitten a music within me that long

Had silently slumbered unknown,
As sunrise on Memnon awakened a song
In the breast of colossal stone.
Dearest, I love you, and fain would speak

My love in the soul-felt chords
Of an unspoken music, for language is weak
And love is a "song without words."

62

Yet once again I touched her hand,

The fairest of the fair ;
The queen of all the loveliness

That had assembled there.
Our words were few and careless,

That they might not understand
The rush of deeper meaning

As it thrilled from hand to hand.

I passed with head averted.

For fear our eyes should meet ;
And trembling and bewildered,

I should cast me at her feet.
But still I felt her presence.

Though my eyes were turned away.
In her beauty's isolation.

Turning all the rest to clay.

63

A sunset face, so wondrous fair.

Its pearly brightness seemed to speak ;
With sunset gold upon her hair,

And sunset rose upon her cheek ;
And eyes that seemed like gleams of blue,

When gates of cloud are half ajar.
And from the rift comes softly through

The glimmer of the vesper star.

I made a heaven of her, my love

Was like a twilight reverie ;
I drank her beauty like the air.

The outer world seemed lost to me ;
And so it seemed a sudden jar.

And like a very death to mark
My sunset pale from gold to gray.

And I was standing in the dark.

64

Dnes for Music.

The sweet airs of spring will come over the snow

And waken the songs of the birds as they go,

And breathe on the buds till they burst into green

And wild flowers will spring where their footsteps have been.

But he that was sunshine and blossom and song,
He cometh no more, and my winter is long;
He cometh no more my beloved to be.
And springtide hath never a blossom for me.

65

A Fable.

There lived a man in olden time

That loved a stone;
T'was veined with lines of tender hue.

With flowers overgrown.
He wooed it from the flush of dawn

To twilight lone;
T'was wondrous lovely, so he thought.

But still a stone.

He tried to cut his name thereon

And leave a trace
Of his great love, so deep that Time

Should not erase.
He kissed the unrelenting rock

From cope to base;
He gashed his breast in clasping it

With wild embrace.

He sought to warm it with his breath,

That icy stone;
The coldness chilled him unto death,

Through flesh and bone.
And so he perished then, and lay

All pale and prone; —
He thought he loved a Woman, but —

He loved a stone.

66

They parted in their anger,
ITiat had met so oft in bliss,

And words of scorn were uttered
By the lips that loved to kiss.

There was sound of cruel laughter
And never a trace of tears;

The tears shall come hereafter
In the waste of coming years.

67

Shall I lament myself and whine

With fruitless yearning.
Or dull with lust, or drown in wine

My deep heartburning?

There was no toil for her sweet sake

But I could dare it,
And now no gash that love can make

But strength can bear it

68

'Tis here — ^the little wooded knoll.

Dear friend, do you remember
The stately oak, the silver beech.

The skies of gold and amber.
The haze of Indian summer's glow,

The dreamful, rich November?

With buoyant step and throbbing pulse

Along the steepside onward.
With childish jest and childish laugh,

As hand in hand we wandered,
And waded through the rustling gold

That spendthrift trees had squandered?

And now what ghost of vanished joy
Has drawn my footsteps hither?

The April tears have soaked the leaves
And chilled the dreamful weather.

And I am standing all alone
Where once we sat together.

^6063B

Under the veil of starless skies,

Fanned by the soft night breeze,
A green hill sloping beneath our feet,

Above us the rustling trees;
Around us the glimmer of city lights

And its murmuring monotone.
And within us the beat of happy hearts.

Unfettered — ^in darkness— alone.

The great night spoke with her tender voice.

And whispered of love and rest;
The tall trees guarded like sentinels

The way to our darksome rest.
That none might know of the passionate limbs

Caressing and caressed;
And the sweet sky clouded her countless eyes.

And the old earth offered her breast.

The city's laws, like the city's noise,

Seemed feeble and far away.
And earnest eyes and yearning hearts

Are stronger far than they;
For nature speaks with a fuller voice,

So loving and tender and sure,
That love is pure in the human heart

As the earth and the sky are pure.

70

My tears lie deep ; they do not flow
With all my pain that thus we part.

Goodbye, since she has willed it so,
And may she wear a lightsome heart.

I do not claim that sort of pride
That bids me bear it with a smile.

Or say the hurt that I deride
Will only last a little while.

The glows of poesy or art.

The dreams that music's breath can stir.
Were mingled with her in my heart.

And tempered all my thoughts of her.

A name that came with morning light
Upon my lips and lingered there,

And when I laid me down at night.
Repeated as my only prayer.

And now, a faithful courtier's fall
When blasted by a king's decree.

He loses wealth and honors all.
And titles of nobility.

'Tis thus I lose my rank and pride ;

I cannot bear it with a smile.
Or say the hurts I cannot hide

Will only last a little while.

71

After Heine,

The moon looks down and sees her image

Tossing in the ocean's wrath,
Yet above, all safe and placid.

Glides along her heavenly path.

Thus thou movest, my beloved.
Far above me, safe thou art.

And thine image only trembles
In the tempest of my heart

A free version of the above.

Moonlight spreads her track of silver
O'er the water's ceaseless wars.

Even to the dim horizon.
Like a pathway to the stars.

So, beloved, will thine image
Reach across my restless deep.

Even to that dim horizon
Where my waves shall sink to sleep.

72

Dead Leaves.

They grew upon the hillside

In the springtide of their hope,
When white clouds sent the shadows

Chasing up and down the slope;
They laughed above the waters,

They whispered in the trees,
And tossed their airy foreheads

To the sunlight and the breeze.

A shadow fell upon them,

A canker and a blight;
They were fresh and green at midnight.

They were dead at morning light.
Yet still they seemed the fairest

Of the sisters of the wood.
Though their notched and tender edges

Were dabbled in their blood.

And then a fair hand took them
Ere they wholly passed away.
And with a loving pencil
Caught their beauty from decay.
Ah, there is a charm of sadness

In the hope that withereth.
And every blessing loved and lost
Is beautiful in death.

73

Restless Nights.

I know her eyes are sleepless like my own,
Her limbs are restless and her thoughts astir ;

She knows that I am wakeful, far away.
And that I stretch my empty arms to her.

She hears the deep bell beat the night away,
Her eyelids droop, that waken with a start ;

She hears a footfall die along the street.
And louder still she hears her beating heart.

I know the thought that steals away her rest :
She seems to hear a voice that bids us part ;

And then she hears me speak with plaintive look.
And louder still her yearning woman's heart.

I live the burning moments o'er again.
That fled so fast and yet were years to live;

I feel once more the wilder, deeper kiss,
That gave me all that innocence could give.

I felt it once again — ^and yet again
I breathe my life out in that mad caress ;

My lips are burning with its passion still.
My tears are gushing at its tenderness.

74

Can that be false that makes her look so fair?

Can that be sin that lifts me to the skies?
Can that be shame, that, like a mother's prayer,

Brings such a holy beauty in her eyes?

But, O beloved I o'er my stormy heart
Your starlike purity is shining now ;

And sweeter far than all the rest of life,
I feel your prayerful kiss upon my brow.

The broken voice that calls a blessing down.
The hands that smoothed so tenderly my hair,

I feel the tremor of the lips that breathed
A woman's passion and an angel's prayer.

But, O my darling, lie no more awake,
The heart is sore, but pure and undefiled ;

The angels keep you. Breathe a prayer for me.
And sink to slumber like a tired child.

75

And so I took the ringlet up

And held it in the sun ;
But yet it spoke no word to me

Of my beloved one.
I only saw a tress of hair,

Of loveliness untold ;
And that the sunlight turned the threads

To films of burning gold.

But then I pinned it at my throat,

Before I sank to rest ;
And tenderly the long night through,

It slept upon my breast;
It slept upon my breast as tho*

Her cheek were pillowed there;
But still it brought no dream to me, —

That silent tress of hair.

Oh, speak — I pressed it to my lips, —

Thou silent tress of hair;
And then it twined around my wrist,

And seemed to nestle there;
And seemed to say with its caress,

A whispered promise — ^wdl.
Of something sweet in store for us,

But what, it would not tell.
76

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